The overall box office has been down this summer despite there being an atypical number of genuinely good movies in theaters, but one film that didn’t disappoint at the box office was Transformers: Age of Extinction. Though the pic will likely be eclipsed stateside by Guardians of the Galaxy as the top domestic earner of the summer, Age of Extinction has already crossed the $1 billion mark worldwide. Consequently, of course there will be a Transformers 5, but the question now turns to who will direct it. Michael Bay has helmed each and every Transformers movie thus far, even though he briefly gave up directing duties on Transformers 4 before ultimately deciding to helm the movie anyway.

Now Bay is apparently planning on handing over the Transformers 5 director chair to another filmmaker, but will it hold? More after the jump.

Buried in a USA Today article on the Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (via /Film), comes the news that Bay is currently planning on not directing Transformers 5:

Bay, 49, believes he will pass the baton for future Transformer movies to a new director while he turns his focus elsewhere.

Bay himself elaborated on this “new direction” for the filmmaker:

“There’s kind of a new chapter, a new direction in movies I want to make,” says Bay, who is eyeing a passion project, a documentary on elephant poaching. “I have a lot of stories to tell. And it’s about flexing new muscles.”

When Steve spoke to Bay the Age of Extinction junket, the filmmaker admitted that he honestly didn’t know if he’d be returning to direct Transformers 5, but he did question how much more he could bring to the franchise:

“They are so fucking hard to make. They’re hard. 4,000 people worked on [Age of Extinction], and it’s every day for two years, seven days a week… How long can you do Transformers, you know what I’m saying? And after you see this movie, you think, ‘Well what the hell am I going to do next?’”

But of course, Bay said similar comments after directing Transformers: Dark of the Moon, expressing his desire for a new filmmaker to come and inject his or her own sensibilities into the franchise, only to decide to semi-reboot the Transformers world himself. After looking at the grosses of each film in the franchise, you can bet that Paramount and the Transformers producers will do everything in their power to woo Bay back for T5, but will the filmmaker be swayed or will he finally step back and hand over the reins? Time will tell.

What do you think, readers? Do you want to see Bay stick with the franchise, or would you rather him make another Pain & Gain-type movie? If Bay does depart Transformers, who would you like to see step in and take over the world? Sound off in the comments below.